“Not in the least,” said La Rouërie quickly. “Yes, you may sit up if you wish. Do not try to stand yet. Barbette, where is my flask of brandy?” “I will get mine,” said Gilbert, hastening to the door. La Rouërie quitted Louis and came after him. “Barbette shall show you where to put the horses,” he said in a low voice. “You cannot possibly go on to-night.” “But we cannot stay here,” protested Gilbert. “On the contrary, you can perfectly well do so. You will probably kill that young man if you take him on to-night. Besides, I want a talk with you.” “But you—your own danger——” stammered Gilbert. The prescript shrugged his shoulders. “I am only ‘Monsieur Milet’, a merchant of Bordeaux, staying at the château of Launay-Villiers. The person I am here to meet may not come to-night; if he does, so much the better. Barbette would let herself be cut in pieces for me.” “But not for us,” thought Château-Foix, and hesitated. “That is settled, then,” said the Breton easily. “Barbette, show Monsieur where to put the horses, and make us a bed ready at once.” He took the flask from Gilbert’s half unwilling hand and went back to his patient. When Gilbert returned he found Louis propped in the corner of the settle, talking with rather feverish animation to their new acquaintance. And suddenly Gilbert realised how nothing, apparently, could more than a little dim his cousin’s charm—neither illness, nor fatigue, nor an ill-fitting coat, nor an uneasy conscience. But had he a conscience at all? Undoubtedly the Marquis de la Rouërie had a way with him. It seemed but a short time after Gilbert’s re-entry that the owner of the house had been reduced to mute if not to acquiescent submission; that Louis, in spite of his expostulations, had been ensconced in the bed by which, after local custom, the corner of the living-room was adorned; and that Gilbert was sitting on the settle by the side of “Monsieur Milet,” talking as if he had known him all his life.